


(hands pressed into) wet cement

by BelaBellissima



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Steph is Carries mom AU, no profreading we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 04:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19738636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelaBellissima/pseuds/BelaBellissima
Summary: She knew Bruce kept an eye on her kid, but she didn’t think he’d be so obvious about it. Steph tries to turn around and leave right then and there, but Carrie’s smile, complete with a gap from a missing front tooth, holds her captive. It’s the first time she’s seen her daughter, and damn if she isn’t going to look for as long as she can.





	(hands pressed into) wet cement

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this ready for months but I forgot that I finished this part??? I hoped to write a second part but uhhhh, I'm over it. I just want to post lmao. I've missed writing about Steph.
> 
> Title from Wet Cement by Kid Runner (A song about a romance that makes me think instead of Steph and her daughter and the struggle of that relationship.)

Steph supposes it all starts because Bruce’s accumulated sleep debt finally catches up to him.

She’s visiting the Manor and is twenty-one, recently graduated from Gotham University with an undergrad degree. Dick insisted they throw her a party to celebrate, and Alfred promised a giant waffle for her instead of a cake, and well, how could she say no to that? Bruce is in the cave of course, but when Alfred says he’s going to go fetch him an hour in, she volunteers to go in his stead.

She takes the stairs instead of the elevator, and when she reaches the cave, she smiles. Bruce is in the suit with the cowl pushed down, completely passed out in front of the Bat-computer. His head is tilted back against the head rest and gravity is pulling his mouth slightly open. She takes a picture as quietly as she can, then turns to look at whatever it is that he was working on.

There’s a school picture of a young girl on the screen. The information to the right reads:

NAME: Caroline Keene “Carrie” Kelley

AGE: Six

GENDER: Female

HEIGHT: 3.5 ft (1.07 m)

WEIGHT: 49 lbs (22 kg)

EYE COLOR: Green

HAIR COLOR: Red

BLOOD TYPE: A-positive

ADOPTED BY:

FATHER: Wilson Kelley  
MOTHER: Cornelia Kelley

BIRTH PARENTS:

FATHER: Dean Williams

MOTHER: Stephanie Brown

A soft inhale is the only outward reaction she allows herself, but on the inside, she’s freaking out. She knew Bruce kept an eye on her kid, but she didn’t think he’d be so obvious about it. Steph tries to turn around and leave right then and there, but Carrie’s smile, complete with a gap from a missing front tooth, holds her captive. It’s the first time she’s seen her _daughter_ , and damn if she isn’t going to look for as long as she can.

She takes as long as she dares to without risking either Bruce waking up or one of the others coming down, memorizing as much as she can before silently sending the file to her phone and then deleting the evidence.

She puts her party face back on as she climbs back up the stairs, leaving Bruce to his slumber.

(And if he opens his eyes and smiles softly at the closing door as she leaves, who would be the wiser?)

Alfred looks disappointed in her lack of Bruce upon her return until she shows them all the photo of him asleep, at which point a glint of relief and affection sparks in his eyes. The other kids are all laughing or humored in some way: Dick is on the floor laughing, Jason has a mischievous smirk on his face as he asks her for the photo too, Tim has a fond smile making the bags under his own eyes seem lighter, Barbara is chuckling under her breath, Damian is struggling to keep his disgusted frown from pulling into a small grin, and Cass has a pleasantly thoughtful look on her face as she reads him. Steph figures she probably knows what he’s dreaming about, even looking at him second-hand through the photo on her phone screen.

The party picks up as some of the Titans and her mother show up as well, and half an hour after Crystal arrives, Bruce comes up, what counts as a sheepish look for him on his face.

Steph has fun with everyone, with the family she created for herself over the years, but the green-eyed, red-haired, lightly freckled face of her daughter doesn’t leave her mind all night long, and in her sleep later that night, she dreams of what could have been.

* * *

It happens again, only this time, three weeks after the last, Steph is searching for the file on purpose. There’s no new information, which Steph laments for a few moments, before setting up in the files’ coding an invisible, automatic information-push to her personal devices. Anytime something is added or changed, the updated version will be sent to her phone and her computer, encrypted so that none of the other bats or birds can figure it out should one commandeer her tech for any reason. She’s incredibly thankful that Barbara had taught her a little computer magic over the years, otherwise she doesn’t think she’d be able to get away with it.

Three months later, right at the start of the new school year, the photo and height are updated. Steph spends an hour rememorizing her daughters face, from the filled in tooth-gap to the new splattering of freckles that had appeared over the summer break. Another few days after that, she makes a waffle and puts seven candles in it to celebrate Carrie’s birthday as she sits alone at her table and stares at the picture on her phone.

She tells herself it’s not wrong of her to do this. She knows she wanted the blind adoption for a reason, and this goes completely against part of it, but the larger reason was to ensure that nothing could ever connect the two of them to each other. Steph can’t help but think about how unlikely it is of someone hacking the Batcave, which eliminates that reason. There’s no harm in checking up on her through Bruce’s files.

And yet… Carrie’s address is in those files.

Steph swears to herself that she won’t swing by, that she won’t even visit that section of Gotham and risk it, but Bruce has a habit of messing up her best plans.

“Batgirl, swing through Burnley, by Von Gruenwald Enterprises ,” Batman’s low voice crackles through her comm. Steph rolls her eyes, because why bother to send a reason or what to look out for, but sends back an affirmative. What would be the point of complaining?

She stands from her crouch behind an old gargoyle and cracks her neck to relieve the stress, swinging down the moment Oracle sends her the coordinates. It only takes her a few minutes to get there, perching herself next to one of the many gargoyles that guard over the city. She has to steady her breathing, because she realizes a minute out that VGE is only two blocks away from the apartment where Carrie lives.

It’s the closest she’s been since she found out.

“Scan a three-block radius for any suspicious activity,” Batman orders a moment later. Steph wants to curse him out. It was like he somehow knew what was going through her head and was doing everything possible to sabotage her self-control.

She sends an affirmative anyway, swinging in the opposite direction of Carrie’s home to postpone the inevitable for another few minutes. When she circles back around, Steph pauses on the roof of the neighboring apartment building. If she really wanted to, she could look through the window to see if Carrie was in her room, or if she was still out in the living room with her parents. Maybe she was in the kitchen getting a glass of water, or maybe all Steph would see would be a crack of light under the doorway to the bathroom. Anything was possible.

Maybe Carrie wasn’t even there – maybe she was spending the night at a friend’s house.

Despite her better judgement, Steph swings down, landing on the fire escape with barely a sound. She’s hidden by the wall for the time being, and she cautiously tilts her head so that Carrie’s room becomes visible.

She sees Carrie in person for the first time in her life, sleeping in her bed with the covers tucked right up under her chin. She’s the most beautiful thing Steph thinks she’s ever seen.

A minute later she pulls away from the window and swings away. She doesn’t think she can stay any longer without doing something she’d regret.

She thinks it’s the end of all of that. Steph thinks that she’s seen Carrie now, knows her face well enough to recognize her anywhere, but for now, she’s going to let Carrie grow up without her. She’s going to protect her daughter, keep her safe from everything vigilante in nature, and maybe Carrie will survive somehow.

Steph has to hope.

* * *

She gets the alert that the Gotham Regional Bank is getting robbed as she's walking home from one of her few graduate classes she has left before finals come around. She's only a block away, and Batgirl doesn't have the same time restrictions that Batman does if there's not a League Emergency; she’s fully able and willing to show herself in the daytime. She ducks into an alley and scrambles up a fire escape to the roof to change as quickly as she can, hating it just as much as she always does when she has to change while so exposed.

The instant she's done, she swings from the roof and down the street, crashing right through the (admittedly open) window. Gothamites got smart after a few years of replacing the glass over and over, and now it seemed to be the norm that one person always ran to open a window when the weekly robbery began. Steph thinks they actually hired someone to just sit by them all day long a few months back. She almost wishes she could have that job; it must be really easy money.

She lands on the ground in the center of the bank with barely a sound. The robbers are too panicked trying to get as much as they can out of the vault before, well, she shows up that they don't actually notice she already has. The hostages all stay quiet, used to this after years of living in Gotham. There's a few scared kids to one side, and Steph throws them a wink before pulling out her normal batarangs and a couple of smoke pellets.

Three of the robbers go down instantly, but the last four are all made aware by their shouts and spin, guns pointed into the smoke. It's almost too easy to throw another four batarangs to knock the weapons from their hands, then toss a few bolas around their legs as they scramble to get away.

The whole thing is over in less than two minutes. Steph pouts, because she had hoped to beat Tims record of one minute and twenty-six seconds.

She waits around until the GCPD show up a few minutes later, then begins to head back to her window to leave. She’s walking by the children she has winked at earlier when a whispered "Batgirl... Woah" catches her attention. She starts to shoot a smile at them, but she recognizes that face. 

It's Carrie, in a batgirl shirt, carrying a batgirl doll. (She's smugly happy that her daughter is a fan, but worried all the same).

Her daughter was just at risk during a bank robbery.

Steph’s not sure she manages to smile the way she was hoping, but the children seem satisfied as she gets out of there as quickly as she can.

She was never supposed to see Carrie face to face because she knew it would be far too easy to want to do it again. She knew it would happen, and happen it did.

She's barely able to go three days before she's banging on Tim's window, demanding to be let in. Tim’s half asleep, even though it's only four in the afternoon. He probably had pulled a three day stretch of wakefulness before crashing an hour before, so it's remarkably easy to convince him to lend her one of his Polaroid cameras. She waits on the Kelley fire escape until dark falls, her heart thudding the longer she begins to question her decision. At nine on the dot, Carrie skips into her room to get ready for bed, her parents coming in to tuck her in at nine thirty, leaving five minutes later and closing the door behind them. Steph drops to the window sill immediately, tapping on the glass softly enough that only Carrie is able to hear it. The girl shoots up to a sitting position, staring at her with wide worried eyes until she recognizes Steph in her batgirl costume. 

"Batgirl?" She mouths, astonished, before quietly slipping out of bed to unlock the window for her favorite hero.

"Hey Carrie. I saw you at the bank the other day, and I wanted to come see if you were doing all right?"

Carries eyes widen considerably. "You know my name?" 

Steph smiles. Carrie’s fine.

"Yep. I saw you were wearing my symbol and had my doll. I always love seeing fans, and I thought you might want something a little more."

Carrie looks suspicious. "What kind of more?"

Steph smiles and pulls out the camera. "I tricked Red Robin into letting me borrow this. We can take as many photos as you want until the film runs out."

Carries face light up in a smile, and Steph finds herself being manhandled into a pose within seconds and the camera immediately taken from her hands. She doesn't protest for the half hour Carrie takes, reposing her in fighting stances and relaxed stances and simple smiles as the camera, but eventually she wrangles the camera away, pulling the ten-year-old into her arms so her back is against Steph’s front. 

"Come on, you should be in the photos too," she says. Her head falls over Carrie’s shoulder and she turns the camera around, counting off carefully and pressing the button to freeze the memory, taking a second one while waiting for the first to develop.

“You’re not looking at the camera,” Carrie pouts, holding up the second photo in Steph’s face. Indeed, Steph isn’t looking at the camera – instead her head is turned so that she’s looking at Carrie. She’d never seen herself make that face before, a wistful, content look tinged by a hint of sadness, full of love. It’s obvious, even with the cowl blocking most of her face. Steph’s never seen her eyes look like that, not even in the few photos she has from when she was with Tim.

“Do you mind if I keep that one then?” Steph asks. Carrie purses her lips as she thinks, deciding with a sharp nod as she pushes the picture into Stephs hand.

“That way you can remember too,” Carrie explains, yawning. Steph tucks the photo carefully into a pocket on her belt, already knowing that she has to leave soon and hating it, but she can't risk being seen with Carrie.

Carrie’s already half-asleep, watching with half-lidded eyes as Steph picks up the photos and hides them in Carrie’s bedside drawer, sliding a few miscellaneous papers on top of them, "Come on," she heaves as she hoists Carrie into her arms to carry her to her bed. Carrie yawns as she tucks her back into bed, bundling the covers under her chin. "Now don't forget this, Carrie. You can't show these to anyone or it can put both of us at risk. Do you understand? Keep them for yourself where you can enjoy them but no one else will find them."

Carrie nods sleepily. "Thanks. G'night Batgirl."

Steph smiles and presses a kiss to the crown of her head.

"Sleep well, Carrie. Know that I'm watching over you."

She waits until she sure Carrie is asleep before finishing. "And never doubt that I love you."

And with that, she disappears back into the night, her lone photo and Tim’s camera clutched tightly in her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway here's what was vaguely planned for the part-two-that-will-never-be.  
> Carrie's parents tell her she's adopted when she's a senior in high school. She, being a rational teenager, remembers the photos she took a long time earlier and gets it in her head that the ONLY person who can help her find her birth parents is Batgirl, so she waits on the roof on her apartment building like,,,,,, ten nights in a row until Batgirl happens to pass by and she explains the situation and asks for her help.  
> Steph, naturally, is freaking out bc what is she supposed to tell Carrie here but she's also grown older and is more secure with Carrie's safety if they were to know each other. After a few days, she tells her everything all dramatic n stuff bc we stan drama for the aesthetic.  
> Afterwards, Carrie gets a Wayne Scholarship to literally anywhere she wants to go and for anything she would ever want to do for the rest of her life. She visits the BatClan for dinner and thanks Tim for loaning them the camera. Tim is confused. Steph is happy. The End :)
> 
> [Find me online](https://linktr.ee/belabellissima)


End file.
